Portraits in Silicon by Robert Slater

Abstract

198 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE tween the Continental and Anglo-American traditions would help advance the overall level of discussion. The analyses in this section tend to move back somewhat to an understanding of technology in general, rather than dealing more strictly with computers. On the whole, while the volume cannot be considered strictly an introductory reader, since it requires some background understand­ ing of wider philosophical issues, it is surprisingly accessible and does give coverage to the central concerns in the held. It would be useful to anyone wanting to obtain a deeper understanding of the debates surrounding the issues in information technology. Heinz C. Luegenbiehl Dr. Luegenbiehl is professor of philosophy and technology studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Portraits in Silicon. By Robert Slater. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987. Pp. xiv+ 374; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). In Portraits in Silicon, Robert Slater presents biographical sketches of thirty-four people who have played important roles in the history of computing. Conceptualizers and theoreticians are represented: Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Claude Shan­ non, and Donald Knuth. There are early computer builders: Konrad Zuse, John Atanasoff, John Mauchly, Presper Eckert, Howard Aiken, and Jay Forrester. There are some of the inventors who made possible the miniaturization of computers: William Shockley, Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby, and Ted Hoff. There are hardware designers—Gene Amdahl, Seymour Cray, Gordon Bell—and software designers— Grace Hopper, John Backus, John Kemeny, Thomas Kurtz, Gary Kildall, William Gates, Dennis Ritchie, Kenneth Thompson, Daniel Bricklin. And there are entrepreneurs: Thomas Watson, William Norris, Ross Perot, Nolan Bushnell, Steven Jobs, Adam Osborne, and William Millard. Though the work of neither a historian nor an insider, Portraits in Silicon contains, in a highly readable form, a great deal of informa­ tion, much of it derived from interviews that Slater conducted with twenty-three of the subjects. The writing tends to the anecdotal, with only occasional explanations of hardware or software and only occasional mention of philosophical, political, and social issues raised by the existence of computers. Where the book is most useful is in describing the backgrounds and motivations of the subjects. The polybiographical approach may suggest some patterns. It struck me that many of the subjects had fathers who were engineers; that many, if not most, built mechanical or electrical gadgets as children; and that TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 199 many were drawn to computing machinery by the practical need to carry out computations. The early history of the electronic computer has, quite naturally, received more scholarly attention than have the developments of the last two or three decades; books by Paul Ceruzzi, Herman Goldstine, and Michael Williams are among the best accounts of the early history. The rapid pace of developments in computing—even events of this decade, such as the introduction of the Osborne in 1981, may seem distant—makes treatment of the recent history, as in Slater’s book, particularly welcome. Frederik Nebeker Dr. Nebeker is a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the American Philosophical Society, where he is writing a history of geophysics. His Ph.D. dissertation dealt with the effect of computers on meteorology. Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer. By Clark R. Mollenhoff. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988. Pp. xv + 274; illustrations, bibliography, appendixes, index. $24.95. The First Electronic Computer: The AtanasoffStory. By Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 387; illustrations, bibliography, appendix, index. $30.00. In the late 1930s, John V. Atanasoff, a new professor of mathemat­ ics and physics at Iowa State College, abandoned his efforts to build analog devices for doing complex calculations. He began working on what he described as a “computing machine proper”—what we now call a digital computer. Atanasoffbased the machine on electricity and electronics, devised a “regenerative” memory using condensers, and used a binary system to compute by direct logical action rather than an analog approach. With the help of Clifford E. Berry, his graduate assistant, Atanasoff built a prototype to solve differential equations. In 1941, John W. Mauchly, a visiting physics professor from a Pennsylvania college, examined the computer and...